Going Solo

It feels extraordinary to step away from the heartbeat of family and home for three whole months. To step away from the various roles and routines I love to inhabit and perpetuate. To take myself to the other side of the world just … Because.

A few weeks out from leaving I am aware of an odd tension inside me; I feel myself turning willingly towards the new experiences that travel brings while knowing that the one who will be doing the experiencing is my intimate and familiar self. I travel with me. I wonder exactly what it is I hope to learn by leaving one shore for another. I know that I will only be able to answer this question by going.

I invite carefully selected items to journey to the northern winter with me: my yoga mat, a journal given to me that I have filled with tantalising words and images, The Complete Kāma Sūtra with its beguiling instructions for love, and the comfort of a hot water bottle. I am trying to travel lightly; to put all extraneous content aside so that I can see more clearly what is essential. These objects feel oddly necessary to my well-being.

I have sweet rendezvous lined up. A beloved girlfriend in Texas with a stunning heart and a pretty yoga studio. A non-dual retreat in New York that I am undeniably drawn to attend. Three weeks with my beautiful daughter in Spain. A couple of wintry months on a small Mediterranean island where I will live alone, continue to work, and begin to weave words together to craft a book.

I am writing this book for my own pleasure. I am also writing this book for You.

On the island, I imagine myself waking early and moving slowly on my mat by candlelight. I will write steadfastly every day until 3pm. I will keep food nourishing but simple – bowls of porridge and soup and a dark glass of something aromatic in the evenings. I will be enchanted by the simplicity of having only three changes of clothing. I will be rejuvenated by silence and solitude.

It will be all of these things - and it will be none of these things.  

How I think life will be is never the way it unfolds. And that is as it should be. The theatre of the universe is infinitely more creative than my own attempts to direct the trajectory of my life. But it is very obvious to me that I am deliberately disrupting the status quo and reaching for something that feels … unreasonable. I am willing to feel unreasonable. And this is both uncomfortable and enlivening.

Exploring new external terrain will require a fresh way of navigating my inner landscape. Or perhaps it’s the other way around – mining unchartered lands of my inner life has compelled me to seek a similar experience in the outer world. Either way, my personal biography will expand and evolve. Fresh connections always titrate dynamic dialogue. New experiences make me flex and stretch and recalibrate.

But for now, I am here. My immediate future may be neatly arranged in a suitcase, but as I prepare to teach an evening yoga class I do the only thing I can do - which is to continue to engage in the current conversation between all the parts and pieces of myself. To be willing to live from a loving heart and be radically present from this place.

And to know that this is the real journey.

Tat tvam asi. You are That.